Biggest card selling regret?

This topic comes up from time to time in any number of Facebook groups or on forums, such as Hobby Insider or Blowout Forums.

For me, the answer is easy. It's this one:

So what is this card?

Back in 2010 time frame, Rittenhouse Archives held the Marvel license for trading cards. They produced a full set of cards for the first "big" MCU movie, Iron Man. Maybe you've heard of it...

Anyway, I was building a master set for the movie. It had some costume cards (including short-printed Obadiah Stane tie cards and some Pepper Potts bustier cards). It also had a handful of autographs, notably one of Robert Downey, Jr. While I was building the set, I picked up the the RDJ auto for $180 or so. A few months later I got bored with the set and split it up.

I posted the cards on Hobby Insider to sale. Someone offered me $250 for the RDJ auto. I thought sure, $70 profit for a few months of sitting in a box, why not?!?

Fast forward to today. That same card is selling for $12,000 or more.

So yeah, the moral of the story is NEVER SELL ANYTHING!

Buyer frustrations

I collect sketchcards from Mark Bloodworth (along with some artwork directly from him--see it all here).

Mark doesn't really do a lot of sketchcard sets, and even when he does, he generally only does a handful. You won't see a set with him doing 50 or more cards. It's usually 4-6, something like that.

That said, his cards don't pop up too often. Those that are up on eBay have been up for a while, only because the asking prices are a little... hopeful. I say that as someone who owns several cards myself. I kinda know his market.

So there was a 2-card puzzle that had been up on eBay for months. Most recently it had an opening bid of $150 (with a much higher BIN). I felt kinda interested, but just had other things going on, so didn't get a bid in.

While it was still up, I get an email from the seller. They were moving away from an eBay store and to their own website. They had taken images and shared them out in a GoggleDocs folder. Was I interested in any?

You bet, the Bloodworth and a couple of others. I asked for what they were looking for on the cards. Generally speaking, off-eBay prices are a little less since there are no fees taken out as well. Usually the sellers are willing to lower a little.

So that $150 card puzzle on eBay? They wanted $400.

Pfft, no thanks. I explained that there were no bids at $150, so I was out. I also gave some suggestions on the other two cards I was interested.

The reasoning was that the seller's partner got mad it was priced so low on eBay.

Hmm, if it didn't sell at $150 on a global marketplace, how in the world is it going to sell for nearly three times that on a personal website?

They did take my advice on the other two cards and offered them to me at that amount.

No thanks, I'll pass on all of them now. Thanks, though!

Two things that have ruined the hobby

I'll keep this one short:

• Speculators
• Grading

Aftermarket sketchcards - do your homework

There are a ton of sets that feature sketchcards these days. There are a ton of artists that produce those cards. And there are a ton of blanks available for any price range.

I came across a couple of fantastic cards on eBay that were being sold directly by the artists themselves. This usually means they are Artist Proofs, Returns, or whatever the nomenclature is for that particular manufacturer. I believe both of these showed up in the bottom of other listings, one of those "related items". Both caught my eye, and not having much time right then I just added them to my watchlist and moved on.

The first is this one:

This is the "love you" girl in Indy's classroom at the beginning on Raiders of the Lost Ark. It's one of those blink-and-you'll-miss-it-moments from cinema (pun intended). Anyway, a phenomenal sketchcard. It is done by Javier Gonzalez. I am familiar with Javier's work as I have a couple of commissioned cards of his in my own collection. I saw this and wanted it immediately. I actually had a snipe set on it (lower than the final bid, obviously).

In the description, Javier clearly states the following (font and caps his emphasis):

"This is what is commonly referred to as an Aftermarket Sketch Card. This piece is done on OFFICIAL Topps Stock by a non-set artist."

No harm, no foul. Javier was clear, but to the unsuspecting bidder who may be just skimming the listing, would they care? I didn't at the end of the day. This is one card that would go in my collection and stay there. But there is definitely some differences in realized prices if this were an official pack-inserted card.

The second card is this one:

Without even looking at the seller name I knew this was a Charles Hall card. I have a few of his cards in my collection, too. Charles does not have the disclaimer in his listing that this is an aftermarket, but any smart collector should know a few basic things about this.

• Charles Hall was not on the artist listing for this Star Wars Evolution set (though there can be some errors on those)
• Charles typically puts the year on the front, and is from 2021
• this particular Evolution set came out in 2016
• Topps does not give blanks to artists for their Returns/Proofs (like Rittenhouse, for example)

Ergo, this was originally a blank card that Charles painted on. It is not an "official" Star Wars sketchcard. I don't know if he purchased it blank, if another collector purchased it for Charles as a commission that fell through, or what. Doesn't matter. Not an "official" Star Wars sketchcard.

I am not implying that Charles was being deceitful--much like the Gonzalez above, I had a snipe in on this one, too. And I imagine that if this were an official card it would have ended higher as well.

So to some collectors, it just doesn't matter. A great sketch is a great sketch, right? But do a little homework before you start bidding, especially if you ever plan on selling or even flipping the cards. If you don't disclose it, that's on you...

Economics of ePack and COMC

For anyone who is into non-sports, particularly Upper Deck products, they know about UD's ePack platform. For anyone into non-sports OR sports cards, they know about COMC. They are tied together at the hip, as COMC does the fulfillment for ePack. That means that when you open any physical product for ePack, those cards are actually at a COMC facility. This also means when you transfer from ePack to COMC, really all they are doing is taking it from your ePack account and switching it over--it's ostensibly a database update with no need for physical shipping or anything like that.

Unfortunately that is a one-way street. You can transfer from ePack to COMC, but you can't go the other way. I'm not exactly sure why, as it would be just another database update (there is more behind the scenes, probably, so I am oversimplifying things). A big part of ePack is the achievements, and once you redeem a card for an achievement, you can't redeem it again. The ePack platform flags it as redeemed, though it is still a perfectly viable physical card. Once you transfer that same redeemed card to COMC, it doesn't matter. There is no flag there to say if a card was redeemed or not, because it doesn't matter.

This prevents you from buying cards cheaply on COMC, transferring them back "upstream" to ePack, and doing achievements. This also puts a divide in the different markets.

Another feature of the ePack platform is combining base cards. Right now there is an X-Men Metal set live on ePack. It has a low and a high series. The low series is not a physical card, meaning you cannot transfer a low series card to COMC. You can, however, combine 10 base cards to get an ePack-exclusive Blue parallel which is physical. If you are industrious enough with pack breaks or trading, you can do this multiple times and get 10 Blue parallels, then combine those for a Black parallel. So in essence, 100 base for one Black. Let me rephrase that: 100 non-physical, relatively worthless, low-series base for a physical Black ePack exclusive parallel.

You can do the same with high series as well, but those are already physical cards (meaning you can transfer to COMC if desired). Some people are offering $1.50 for a high-series. So that means if they are going for the Black parallel, that's roughly $150 in perceived value for that collector for the Black version of the high series card. That's more than many of the Red PMGs are that are /100, and more than the Pinks which are /75. That's strange to me.

Getting 100 of any card is a challenge because ePack trading can be... difficult. There is a chat feature on the site, and you may get some trades for exactly what you are looking for. Most times, it is lopsided. Few people seem to be ok with base-for-base trades.

With Metal, for example, I am collecting the Firestar cards. She has a low series and a high series base (along with some others, but we'll focus on the base). Same as above, I can collect 10 of each to get the Blue parallel, then 10 Blues to get the Black. Since I am a completionist, technically I need 110 of each, since I gotta keep a Blue one, too.

This is where that one-way street breaks down.

If I could buy 10 of the Blues on COMC, it would cost me roughly $6.50 (they're not all $.65, but you get the idea). I could then transfer them BACK to ePack, combine them, and be done. That is much cheaper than the $27, which is currently the cheapest Black version.

I've read some collectors say they keep things on ePack because they are worth more there. I can see some arguments for that.

The other odd part of ePack and COMC is this. We know they don't produce the base low series, again, using X-Men Metal as an example. This is also true for most of the non-premium sets. But that means that UD created the Blue and Black parallels specifically for combining base on ePack. OK, fine. But let's say that no one wants a Black parallel. People want Blues and that's it. That means that UD has to account for that (admittedly far-fetched) idea and print the maximum number of Blues that could possibly be made from however many low series cards are distributed via ePack pack, boxes, and cases.

In this example, what happens with all those Black parallels that were made and are sitting in COMC warehouses somewhere? Do they purge those at some point? Is there an expiration for ePack exclusive parallels, or will they sit there for an eternity? Maybe three-years from now someone on ePack decides they want to combine 10 of those Blues for a Black. So they have to keep them all, right?

Then think about what happens for the combined cards. You can combine 10 Blues for one Black. You no longer have those Blues in your account, but they are physical, so they are... somewhere. Do they physically destroy Blues when combined into a Black?

Just some of the weird things I think about.

The Alpha and the Omega

Card collecting can be an odd hobby. I have collected cards in one arena or another since I was a kid, and my uncle gave me a rubber-banded stack of 1987 Topps baseball. You know, the wooden borders. In the mid-90s I picked up hockey, then eventually some non-sports. So I've seen it all. From a time when jersey cards were rare hits to them being so common you can't give some players away. From a time when cards were hard-signed to when they are all nearly stickers. From before sketchcards to them being readily available in nearly every non-sport release, oftentimes as a box hit.

So while I consider myself a veteran of card collecting, I was a little shocked when someone mentioned the terms "alpha" and "omega" in a Star Wars collector group on Facebook. In the context of the post, it was obvious they were talking about the first and last stamped card. By that, I mean if a card is stamped out of 99, the "alpha" is stamped 1/99. The "omega" wold be the 99/99.

Because card collectors are a strange breed, some will actually pay a little more for one of these. I personally do not, but I also have to wonder if collectors would attach any premium to these stamped cards if they knew that the "alpha" card, stamped 1/99 in this example, is usually the LAST card stamped. Most manufacturers will, essentially, have a setting on their stamping machine that represents the total print run of any given card.

So, again using this example, they would set the stamping machine to 99. The first card gets it's 99/99 stamp, then it goes to 98/99, 97/99 and so on until the "alpha" card of 1/99 is actually the last card. In a sense, the alpha IS the omega, the omega IS the alpha.

It's only worth what someone will pay for it. Kind of.

Ever been on a forum or in a Facebook group and someone asks the "What's this worth?" question? Of course you have. Oftentimes someone will post the simple answer of "It's only worth what someone will pay for it."

While this is, on the surface, a factually logical statement, it is greatly oversimplified.

The real answer, when applied to any sold item, is far less elegant:

That exact card is only worth what that exact seller sold it for, to that exact buyer, at that exact time, on the exact site, and under those exact circumstances.

Why the difference? Numerous reasons. Let's assume it is an item on eBay:

• -perhaps it was a card listed on just the ebay.ca site as opposed to the ebay.com, hence limiting the audience
• -perhaps the seller did not ship to certain countries
• -perhaps two interested bidders happened to see it and bid it up
• -perhaps the winner needed that single card to finish off a set they have been working on for months, and were willing to pay whatever it took to cross it off the list
• -perhaps it was a specific serial numbered card (some collectors collect jersey numbered, 1/x, x/x, or some other specific numbering)
• -perhaps there was shill bidding
• -perhaps it was a seller with low feedback
• -perhaps it ended at an odd time
• -perhaps a player got hot and the cards are rising
• -perhaps a player is on a cold streak and the cards are dropping
• -perhaps a player got traded and people are dumping cards from the old team
• -perhaps there were two of the same card that ended around the same time
• -perhaps that one bidder who really wanted the card just flat out forgot to place a bid or set a snipe on it
• -perhaps the seller just didn't know what they had, listed it for a low BIN, and it was quickly snatched up
• -perhaps the seller charges a lot for shipping, so buyers have to factor that into total costs

The list goes on. But you can see, there is no magical formula for what a card is worth. So in the future, when you see someone asking, feel free to use my more accurate answer above.